Pension Reform is Coming

Pension Reform Coming: Wanna See Me Pull Something Really Interesting Out of My Hat?

Have you made your calls yet? 

I’m making mine.

First I call my Illinois Representative Monique Davis.  She is in district this week.  Most of them are. 

This is a busy week of family commitments, etc., so it is hard to get to talk to Representative Davis directly, and that’s probably why the Speaker set the timing up for this sudden move to pension reform on these dates.  Clever boy.

I explain to the office assistant for Ms. Davis that I am hoping she will stand against the latest unconstitutional attacks on worker pensions for hundreds of thousands of Illinois families.  She let me down last time.  The office assistant kindly and genially takes down my information.  We wish each other good holidays.

But, as a constituent, I ask her to urge Representative Davis to call me and I provide my number.  “It’s very important to me that she call me back, because I’d like to know where she stands on some of these rumored aspects of the proposed bill from the group of ten.” 

 Sometimes office assistants will provide you with a cover statement that has been given them by their legislative bosses.  It will be something like, “Representative So-and-so wants you to know that he stands against a move to lower the cost of living allowance.”  That sounds good, but it doesn’t answer whether the same Representative would allow a freeze on COLA’s or a link to the CPI, or does that include compounding? 

It’s best to talk directly to them, so I’ve left my concerns and requests for returned calls for both Representative Davis and Senator Jones.  He’s in district this week too.

I’ve been calling other Representatives and Senators as well.  I know I am not a constituent in their districts, but I do tell their office assistants that I am a constituent in the very real sense that what they might do will affect me - and probably my friends and family in their districts.  I leave a message and a request for a return call there too. 

It’s pretty easy to call.  If you can’t look it up on the web, just call 888-412-6570.  You can leave a message that way. 

Either way, you should really do something.